'This problem is not going away': An entire Florida homeowners association board just quit after $60K special assessment dispute — here's why

Each household was expected to shell out around $60,000, and a vote was set for June 20 to determine the exact payment plan.

“There will be a lot of people that lose their home, either they have to sell or they can't make these payments. They'll have a lien put on their house, foreclosures,” said Tammy Rodeffer, an owner, to WTSP at the time. “I'm concerned about the overall community.”

However, at a special meeting, the owners arrived in hordes to convince the board to hold off on making a decision.

“You need to get together, this problem is not going away,” resident Robert Regan said. “And condos, they need to have 100% reserves.”

And then, in an email after the vote on June 21, the entire board announced it had resigned — effective immediately.

What’s creating exorbitant special assessment fees?

Following the 2021 Surfside collapse — which killed 98 people in Miami due to construction flaws — regulations now require more frequent inspections of condo buildings, while many condo associations are raising fees to build a larger reserve for repairs.

Now, Florida state reforms require reserve and milestone studies and mandate annual contributions to reserves, but they only apply to units that are three stories or higher. The townhomes at the Villas aren’t condos — and they’re just two stories tall.

The HOA board said that insurance companies would no longer insure the complex in a few years if it didn’t have the necessary reserves to pay for new roofs.

Not everyone agrees it's necessary

But Patricia Staebler, a certified reserve specialist based in Sarasota, notes that a project’s time-equivalent cost should already be banked ahead of the renovation if the association wanted to avoid any special assessments.